Saturday, September 27, 2014

Video of Sit-ins by Students on Sept. 27 & 28 at Civic Square, Hong Kong

After five days of peaceful class boycott by members of the Hong Kong Federation of Students (undergraduates) and Scholarism (secondary school students led by 17-year old Joshua Wong), the class boycott turned (at midnight on September 27, Hong Kong time) into a peaceful overnight sit-in at Civic Square, a public open space in front of the Government Headquarters building, when their demand to speak to the Chief Executive (C. Y. Leung) was not met. During the time, the police used pepper spray indiscriminately on the unarmed students and their supporters and scuffles broke out. Police arrested Joshua Wong, leader of Scholarism and denied him bail. In the pre-dawn hours of September 28, riot police moved in to clear out the protesters by force from Civic Square, which is public space open to all citizens.

The class boycott and sit-in are part of the civil disobedience movement in protest against the Chinese Central Government's refusal to grant genuine democracy to Hong Kong (i.e. universal suffrage with citizens' right to nominate CE candidates instead of the proposal of limiting the nominating right to a small circle of 1,200 CCP-friendly members from the elite and limiting the number of candidates to two or three). These activities can be viewed as a prelude to the "OCCUPY CENTRAL" movement initiated by HKU law professor Benny Tai, which is the main act of civil disobedience planned for October 1, 2014.

This is the video that records the sit-in and rallies:-

As of the early morning of September 28 (Hong Kong time), Benny Tai announced that the "OCCUPY CENTRAL" movement would begin immediately.

For those of you who reside in the United States, please show your support of Hong Kong's democracy aspirations by signing this petition addressed to President Obama:-

What Hong Kongers fear most is that the present CE C. Y. Leung or the next pre-screened CE will bulldoze through the legislature the obnoxious Article 23 (which is a national security and sedition law aimed at repressing freedom of assembly, of speech and of the press), which will definitely turn Hong Kong into the next Tibet.